


Canticle of Drabbles

by Serindrana



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-06
Updated: 2012-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-26 23:46:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 16,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serindrana/pseuds/Serindrana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles of various pairings and ratings, with some gen thrown in. Each chapter title will have the pairing/characters and the rating, and if it's an AU or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Third Drink [Aveline & Isabela, T]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aveline & Isabela, gen.
> 
> T.

There are a lot of things Isabela will grant of the captain of the guard. Her hands are strong and firm and man hands in the best of ways (and the worst, says the memory of a right hook to the jaw she had been unable to sidestep during a bar fight); she’s a good distraction in pitched battle; she plays Wicked Grace and Diamondback with enough skill that sometimes it almost seems like cheating doesn’t matter -

And she can always, always, drink Isabela under the table.

The ritual starts about six months after the wedding (a nice enough thing, even if Isabela didn’t stay for long and left soon after the ceremony was complete with a rather handsome mercenary that said he’d worked with Aveline her first year in Kirkwall). Aveline shows up at the Hanged Man, settles kitty cornered from her against the bar, and orders a round, one for herself and one for that slattern over there who never changes her kerchief, let alone her smalls. Isabela toasts her. Aveline doesn’t look up.

It’s only on the third drink that they start talking.

And from there it’s anything goes, healthy doses of jabs and insults and innuendo, critiques of sex lives, intimate details and intimate threats. Five drinks in and Isabela starts going the pleasant sort of hazy that she only gets around good friends, feeling safe and welcome and wanted even while Aveline finishes every phrase with whore.

Nine drinks and the room starts spinning and it’s Aveline who drags her back to her rented room. It’s Aveline who tucks her into bed and Isabela makes a joke about kids and motherhood and Aveline just quirks a brow and tells her to sleep.

She leaves a cup of water by the bed before she heads for the stairs.

Somehow, in the morning, Isabela has a horrid headache and an empty bed, but the bed is oddly warm.


	2. Steady [Fenris & Sebastian, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris & Sebastian, gen.
> 
> G.

"I had thought," Fenris said slowly as he lifted the wine bottle to his lips as if it were not a fine Tevinter vintage, "that your vows would prohibit this sort of thing."

Sebastian, sitting across from him, shrugged. "I don't gamble. I play for fun. There is nothing forbidden about that." His brow furrowing, he plucked two cards from his hand and put them on the table between them.

They were sitting in Fenris’s mansion. Sebastian had long ago given up on trying to convince Fenris to make at least a show of paying for the place or to fix it up so that the roof, at least, did not act as a sieve. Now they often sat in the early evenings, Sebastian answering questions about the Chant and playing a deft hand at the modified Wicked Grace they had come up with to allow for their missing compatriots.

Fenris had suggested, early on, that they go to the Hanged Man for more players. Sebastian had responded that if either of them had wanted Hawke or Varric or Isabela’s company, they would already be at the Hanged Man. Instead, they played alone, with no gold on the table, Fenris polishing off at least two bottles of wine each meeting and Sebastian making it through another passage of the Chant.

Sebastian always won the imaginary pot, with a slight pang for his past and the feel of gold he didn’t need clinking in his pocket after a game. That was something he didn’t tell Fenris, and Fenris never asked.

That night, he won again, and as he rose, bidding the elf goodnight, Fenris tilted his head in thought.

"Yes?" Sebastian asked, gathering up the cards because he knew Fenris would forget and they would get water stained (more than they already were)  or lost.

"You are very steady in your vows."

"I’m a loyal man," Sebastian responded with a soft laugh. "To my faith and my friends both."

Fenris nodded, leaning back. "Next week, then?"

"If Hawke does not need us both sooner, then yes- next week."


	3. Hypotheticals [Elsa/Revenant, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elsa/Revenant.
> 
> G.

He brings a piece of the Fade into the world with him.

It's inevitable, really, a theoretical unavoidability. Revenants are the bodies of dead heroes, possessed by demons but not simply the walking dead; there must be a tether that remains. The logic is sound. She notes his existence in the large tome that the knight-commander once gave her, followed by postulates. 

 

 _Demons are connected to the Fade. It is their nature._

 **_Therefore_ ** _: The Revenant is connected to the Fade. It is his nature._

 __

 _Tranquil are severed from the Fade. It is their nature._

 **_Therefore:_ ** _I am severed from the Fade. It is my nature._

 __

And there is where she pauses, for just a moment. But there is no reason not to continue, to obstruct the flow of logic and careful thought that is her greatest skill, her definition, her _nature_.

 

 **_Theory:_ ** _A Tranquil touched by the Fade may for a time become not Tranquil._

 **_Therefore_ ** _: The Revenant may let me feel again._

 _  
_

__

There is no valence attached to the statement, only truth. She does not care one way or another whether she feels again or sees him again. But the theory proposes a hypothesis, and careful testing is needed. The result needs to be noted.

And so she makes her way through the halls of the Gallows, abandoned now by all but the most devout in the wake of the fall of the Kirkwall chantry, and descends stairs revealed in the violence, shielded for many decades, many centuries. She has made a careful study of the stairway itself, the carvings on the walls, the old lettering, the stone itself. It is old stone, different from the rest of the Gallows but brought, too, by the Tevinters.

At the bottom of the stairs is a door.

Behind the door is a dead man.

With every step closer, Elsa begins to feel trepidation - and hope.


	4. Opportunity, Lost and Gained [Garrett & Fenris, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garrett & Fenris, gen.
> 
> G.

"What is _that_?" Garrett asked, staring. His eyes were wider than the antics of blood mages had ever made them, and Fenris shifted uncomfortably.

"A rabbit." It was the truth, but the words still took effort to get out. The small, fluffy creature wriggled in his lap, then lept from it and bounded a few feet towards the Champion of Kirkwall. The Champion retreated.

"Well, _yes_. But Andraste's _arse_ , what is it doing here?"

"I- intended to have it for dinner last night. They were selling them in Lowtown. And then it got loose."

"Got loose," Garrett said, fingers twitching at his sides as the rabbit came close enough to sniff at his boot. " _Got loose_."

"I found it in my room this morning, going through my things. It has eaten all of my elfroot." He wouldn't admit out loud that he had grown fond of the small, brown field rabbit, with its soft fur and uncommon boldness. It was certainly better than the cats that the abomination seemed to attract, and kept its distance without being cruel.

Plus it ate the vegetables that Orana was always bringing over, as if Fenris himself would eat them.

"You have a pet. You have a _bunny_. Maker, Fenris, I can't- ah! Ah, get it- get it _off_ -"

It had settled onto Hawke's boot and was attempting to go to sleep. Fenris chuckled, then uncurled from his spot on the floor to go retrieve his little pest.


	5. Missing [Bethany & Cullen, implied f!Hawke/Sebastian, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Circle!Bethany & Cullen, implied f!Hawke/Sebastian.
> 
> G.

“The wedding was two weeks ago.”

Bethany thumbs the letter in her hand, paper stiff and formal and filled with her sister’s handwriting. It’s gotten better since they left Lothering. Mother must have taught her, or else she has been taking lessons in how to be Kirkwall’s Champion and resident enchanting noble. Perhaps it is her husband who taught her. But there are little loops and lines and hooks that Bethany knows are only Marian’s, and it makes the letter all the harder to read.

“She didn’t invite me,” she says, voice flat because anything else will invite tears.

There’s a creak of leather and metal as Knight-Captain Cullen shifts where he stands. “No,” he says. “We expected a petition for your presence.”

“Would the knight-commander have granted it?”

Cullen does not respond. Her heart sinks, though she doesn’t know whether he would have said _yes_ , and she has missed this because of her sister’s lack of hope, or _no_ , and she has missed this finally because of her decision to turn herself over to the Circle. It had seemed like the best idea at the time. With her sister gone, she had learned just how much Marian’s sword and coin had kept the templars at bay. Mother had let slip about how much coin Marian handed over to various bribes each month. It had been unbearable, knowing that she kept them on the run and took the gold Marian worked for each and ever day.

She had thought she was making the right decision.

And then Leandra had been killed; Leandra had died, her mother had _died_ , and Bethany had been sitting in the Gallows, studying, learning, beginning slowly to teach. Her mother had been murdered and Marian had been the one to arrange the funeral, the pyre, the flowers.

Bethany had only sat in the Gallows chapel and prayed alone.

She has missed so much. She remembers, vaguely, the man who is now her brother-in-law. She remembers blue eyes and a straight shot, gleaming armor, an accent. She remembers bits and pieces. _Vengeance._ But that is all. She only knows his name because of the whispers around her, that the Champion of Kirkwall has taken a husband before Andraste.

Bethany stares at her hands, at the thin cord of red around her wrist. The scarf Leandra had given Bethany when she reached her sixteenth nameday is all but gone, burned in symbolic mourning, only a small sliver kept to remind her. She has family, beyond these walls; she has an uncle, a sister, a new brother. She has a home, too, a family estate she has never seen more than the cellars to.

Her eyes burn hot and heavy, and she catches her finger beneath the cord, snapping it.

Remembering the outside and what has gone before is too painful. She hands the fabric and the parchment to the knight-captain and with a thick swallow murmurs, “Please, burn these?”

He nods.


	6. To Protect [Fenris & Sebastian, Zombie AU, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris & Sebastian, gen. Zombie AU.
> 
> G.

“Protect the Aggregio!”

Fenris always manages to sound so serious, so dire, and Sebastian just shakes his head, taking his time to line up his sights. One shot, one kill; it’s so much cleaner than Fenris’ method of swinging a chainsaw around as if it were a sword. And it gives him the space he needs to keep his head clear, to ask for the Maker’s aid in taking down the foul creatures who threaten His children.

Of course, perhaps there are more productive uses of his time and skill than watching from the rafters the door into the liquor store while Fenris gathers up every bottle (six, this time, and Fenris looks gleeful (at least, Sebastian thinks it’s glee, because Fenris is nearly smiling) at the outcome), but friends are the most important thing left in this blighted world.

A zombie breaks from the mass trying to crowd into the building and runs fast for Fenris who is, of course, right near the precious Aggregio, his chainsaw a pull away from running (if they’re lucky). Sebastian frowns; he can’t get the shot, not fast enough.

And so he drops from the rafters and onto the creature’s head, knife in hand driving deep into the zombie’s rotting eye socket. A moment later and he’s fighting to scramble back up to his perch, but Fenris has his blade running and takes his turn rushing the door, beginning to clear a path.

The Aggregio, thank the Maker, is unharmed.


	7. The Meeting [Cauthrien, modern zombie AU, T]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cauthrien, modern zombie AU (Landsmeet), gen.
> 
> T.

The meeting is held in the middle of the day. Strong sunlight keeps the number of prowlers down, and gives her and her men better lines of sight from their perches atop the abandoned warehouse. It's not perfect; the fourth walker of the day appears down the broad avenue her position looks out on, and she grimaces, peering through the sight of her rifle. Still, four over the course of the two hours the meeting has stretched over is doable.

It's a slow one, too. The work is methodical. She breathes slowly, centers the crosshairs on its head (it used to be a woman, she thinks, long dark hair and a face-lift before the corruption took it), and fires, moving mechanically to open and close the bolt in preparation for the inevitable next one. She barely notices the creature go down, except to note that it does not get back up, its eye burst and  the ground behind it splattered with blood and bone and grey matter.

Behind her, the talking continues as if nothing has happened. It's been nearly a year of this, and the city now functions under constant martial law, enforced not just by the police and the local ATF forces under her command, not just by mob men, but by fear and understanding. When the dead walk the streets openly, people retreat. The territory wars have all but ceased. Loghain is speaking heatedly with Eamon Guerrin, head of one of the biggest families, but both men hold their tongues on the most volatile issues.

Nobody wants this war to continue, but nobody wants to lose.

She wipes sweat from her brow as she stares out at the streets, and tries not to listen in. It isn't her place, this jockeying for position. Her task is to serve and protect. But Loghain's only remaining ally, Rendon Howe, was murdered just a week and a half earlier in his own home. The perpetrators have scaped from the Drakon jail. And everything - everything that she has worked so hard to keep together his past year - seems to be falling to pieces around their feet, so much shattered skull on the pavement.

They're talking about the role of the families in keeping order in the city, in peace as well as this unending war. It sets her teeth on edge. She wants to shout, wants to beg and cajole until they understand Loghain, until they acknowledge that they are illegal and that they divide the city unnecessary in a time of strife. _We cannot burn the boroughs while an outside force threatens_ , she'd told Loghain once.

 _Then we make them cooperate first. They will listen_ , he had replied.

They don't cooperate. They never have.

The sun is blinding on the streets when there is movement. A group, approaching, and she frowns, increasing the zoom on her scope. _Humans_ , she thinks, and reaches to her earbud.

"Hold," she says, and the men and women arrayed on the rooftop wait, fingers on triggers, sights trained. Her mouth is dry. Her pulse thuds more than it has even at the runners who assaulted the warehouse only fifteen minutes after they had cleared it and taken up positions at the top. She knows who it is, even before they come close enough that she can make out their clothing, their features.

 _Grey Wardens_.

Rendon Howe's murderers. The opposition. The destabilizing force that the mob bosses have all but championed, Eamon Guerring foremost among them.

The potential saviors of the city.

She doesn't want to admit it, but she will at least consider it these days, even while Loghain turns away from the discussion any time it arises. _Grey Wardens_ , he says, _are a myth_. But so were the walking dead until the events at the Ostagar conference, where the mayor had been slaughtered and Loghain had ordered her and the other ATF agents with her to retreat. _Myth_ has little meaning except for _horrific reality_ these days.

"Hold," she says again, soft enough that Loghain cannot hear.

It takes only another minute to come to a decision. It is her job - her order - to take down these Wardens, to remove them from the equation. But she has faced them before during the SWAT raid on Rendon's estate, and she respects them, even as she has begun to fear that they are right, that they have always been right. That that man, Duncan, knew exactly what was going to happen.

Her hands move quickly, efficiently. She unloads the rifle and sits up, reaching for its case. In under a minute, it's away and she's on her feet, checking her holster out of habit. She feels for her handgun, the pistol given to her just a few weeks before by Loghain. _A gift_ , he had said. _A reward for your loyalty._ It feels awkward sitting against her hip now, with the sun high up and the Wardens approaching.

She touches her ear again. "Smith, Jamison, Lands, Myers, Maxwell. With me," she murmurs, and with a glance to Loghain who now shouts and rages at Eamon and the others, she slips away towards the stairs.

She will face these Wardens herself and hear what they have to say.


	8. Practice [Sebastian/Fenris, T]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian/Fenris.
> 
> T.

Sebastian hisses as the cool paint touches his skin, fingers jerking and tapping against the equally chill floor of the mansion beneath his back. He regrets stripping to the waist in that moment. The stone has warmed some from his skin, but with the addition of the brush along the line of his collarbone, he can feel every point where the heat has not yet penetrated.

"Do not move," Fenris says, kneeling beside him and staring with furrowed brow at the path of the brow. His touch is light, slow, determined.

Sebastian reminds himself firmly that this was his suggestion, even if the form it is taking was unintended. Fenris needs to practice his letters; what better way than to write out the Chant?

And what better canvas than one of the few tangible things that Fenris focuses on? His blade was too small, wine bottles too round as well. Freedom cannot be painted on, nor can vengeance. His shackles, though Sebastian knows he still carries them in spirit if not in fact, are out of reach of curious fingers.

So instead, Sebastian allows his body to be used as a canvas.

Fenris's lips move and for a moment, Sebastian is uncertain as to what he is breathing. But the breaths turn to whispers and he makes out,

 

 _"Those who had sought to claim_

 _Heaven by violence destroyed it. What was_

 _Golden and pure turned black._

 _Thsoe who had once been mage-lords,_

 _The brightest of their age,_

 _Were no longer men, but monsters._ "

 

Threnodies, Sebastian thinks with a barely restrained laugh. It is an appropriate choice for the task, at least; it was only after returning from the Vimmarks that Fenris asked Sebastian for lessons in the Chant as well as in his letters, and he had asked, specifically, to start with the tale of the magisters and their transgressions. And now it had led to this - offering up his skin as paper.

A part of him wishes that Fenris was not inscribing him with words about magisters, but the rest just shivers and relaxes as the brush glides on.


	9. Stories [F!Tabris/Varric, T]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> F!Tabris/Varric.
> 
> T.

He’s always thought himself as a true dwarven man, even without his beard and his distaste for life beneath the surface, attracted to fine dwarven women and gold (and stories, of course). It’s the stories, he decides, that has led to this:

A fine _elven_ woman strolling at his side through the streets of Lowtown.

“We could go to Hightown,” he suggests, trying to sound at ease when really his nerves are being drawn taut as Bianca’s bowstring (Bianca, he reminds himself, who is uncertain of what to think about this new companion of his. Hawke was strange enough, tall and flirty and a little awkward in a charming way, but this?).

“We could,” the woman at his side responds, accent pure Ferelden and something else, something off-center and altogether lovely, rough around the edges and melodic. “But Lowtown feels familiar. It’s like being at home. There’s enough shit and piss and rot to make a girl feel welcome.”

Her smile is lopsided and reveals chipped teeth. Her lips and cheeks are traced with scars. She is not beautiful, not in any usual sense of the word, and if he writes of her he’ll have to change a few details. But she is charismatic and intense.

He likes it. Damn everything, he likes it a lot.

“Hero of Ferelden,” he says, with a soft laugh. “Liking her shit and piss. Pleasant, though I’m not sure I’ll include that little detail.”

That draws an answering laugh from her and she pushes her dark hair back from her eyes. It’s uneven and looks brittle still even though he knows she must eat better these days. She’s skinny, too skinny; he likes his women broad and curved, after all. Kallian Tabris is narrow and bent in the wrong places, her shoulders hunched, her legs bowed ever so slightly.

It makes no sense.

But she’s a story in and of herself, a life mapped out in scars and starvation, oppression and rebellion. She’s the Hero of Ferelden, and she let him buy her a drink the night before. She’s a living legend. 

How is he supposed to say no to that?

\--

The stories aren't all happy.

Well, really, almost none of them are. Even the cheerful ones have an unpleasant undertone. Few will make good tales, except for those in the world who like hearing about the suffering of elves - and to those, he will not tell her story.

The scar on her cheek, a deep gouge that has left a long divot, came not from a darkspawn blade or a childhood tumble. It came from the beginning of the story of Kallian-as-Warden. It's a story he knows, has heard and told in equal measure, but he's never heard the reality behind it. She tells him over Antivan brandy and dinner in his room about her wedding and about what came after, the strike of a wicked gauntlet across her face, the taste of blood in her mouth when she cut down the men holding her cousin captive.

She tells him what happened in that house, what she could not abide.

She tells him, too, of injustices before that, kicks to the knees from much bigger humans, food taken from her hands by other children. But there are also stories of strength, of her mother teaching her how to wield a blade, her father how to wield words. Her love for her cousins and her family, for her community.

The words come over dinner, over drinks, during walks through Hightown and Lowtown and Darktown. He goes to her when he can find her and when Hawke doesn't need him, finds her waiting or waits for her to return from forrays into the Deep Roads. He's seen her ecstatic and exhausted and convulsed with nightmares. He's seen her sleeping naked curled against him, her body a map and an edifice in exultation of all she has accomplished.

Her stories are not happy, but she is. She laughs and jokes and smiles, and that smile becomes ever more precious with the unfolding of detail after detail. He doesn't care that her teeth are chipped, marred by the faint lines and pits of somebody who ate far too little in childhood. He doesn't care that her legs bow out and couldn't be made straight if she tried. He cares about every imperfection only because it is uniquely hers, and he catalogues them all, along with her small breasts, her big dark grey-blue irises he sometimes thinks he could drown in, the narrow curve of her hip.

When she stays the night, he's the happiest man in Thedas.

"So what do you say, Blues?" he asks with a chuckle as he sits himself back in the bed she has come to share so often with him. "Write to your Warden bosses, ask them if you can stay on in Kirkwall?"

"That's not how it works." Kallian drags her shaggy, kinked black hair away from her face like she always does, hoping it will be stuck with sweat even though it always falls right back into her eyes. "Can't just go, _oh great Ser First Warden, can I choose my command_? They hate that sort of thing. Dedication to the Order, and so on." She waves a hand and shrugs, her hunched shoulders rolling fluidly for just a moment as she settles beside him. Her body, for all its odd bends and sad dips, is muscled and strong and capable and beautiful, and he smiles as she dances a hand along his chest.

"Could always give it a shot."

"I don't feel like going to Weisshaupt. It's cold there. It's warm here."

"Don't have to. Look, I'll get some parchment and a pen and you can write them. Tell them there's matters that need to be looked into here. Deep Roads to be explored. A liason in the Merchant's Guild-"

He trails off when he notices that her smile has fallen and her hand has stilled.

"Blues?" He reaches over and catches her chin, tilts it up to get her to look at him again. "What's the matter? Don't tell me you've lost that filthy mouth of yours already?"

She bats at his hand but he doesn't pull away, instead rolling onto his side so he can feel her warmth along him. "I'm fine."

"Nope. Come on, tell me. You're good at lying, I'll give you that, but I'm a _lot_ better."

"Arrogant little man," she mutters, and he laughs then strokes her cheek.

"Come on. Please? At least tell me a better lie."

She looks away again, over to his desk. "… I can't write," she says after a moment, and he catches a hint of blush beneath her dark skin, her embarrassment in the set of her mouth.

"Then I'll write it," he says, gently.

Kallian shakes her head. "I won't be able to read it, either. I won't know what you've said. And like you said - you're a great liar."

"Oh, Blues." He lets go of her jaw and pulls her close instead, her narrow body against his broader chest. He can't enfold her completely; she has at least five inches on him. But he can nuzzle at her cheek and press a kiss to her brow. "I wouldn't lie to you - not about that. Not for anything but fun."

Kallian murmurs, "I know, but-"

"No buts. How about this - I teach you how to read and write, and then when it's done you can tell Weisshaupt to piss off, because you deserve a break?" He quirks a brow and she thumbs at it, as if to wipe his smirk away. That, he thinks, is one of the only things she can't do.

"We can try," she says, finally. "… Where do we start?" 

"We start with one of my books. Obviously."


	10. First Meeting [Alistair/Cheese, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair discovers cheese for the first time - and an OTP is born.
> 
> G.

Alistair is four years old and squawling and Teagan isn't sure what he's supposed to do. Eamon has ridden down to the town to meet with the mayor about a land issue, and Teagan, guest Teagan, Teagan who was only spending time with Alistair until Alistair needed actual minding, is faced with a crying red-faced boy who refuses to settle down.

"'m hungry!" Alistair protests, and Teagan just stares at him in confusion.

"The kitchens-"

"Wanna eat dinner."

"Dinner? But it's only three-"

"Dinner! With Uncle Teagan!"

The child is insistent, terrifyingly so, and after another look around for a nurse or a playmate or _something_ , Teagan hefts the child up in his arm and carries him to the kitchen. Alistair protests, but Teagan assures him that they can have a nice dinner together _not_ in the dining hall.

Alistair is pouting when he puts him down.

Teagan casts about for something to feed the boy. There's a little familiar ceramic pot nearby and he brings it over, opening it to show Alistair. "Marmalade?" he asks.

He is met by the most flat and unamused stare he has ever received, and it's from a four-year-old. 

"No. Not dinner."

Teagan bites down a sigh. He can't very well go and have the cooks roast a chicken or make some other 'dinner' food. He is at a loss, wondering if he just gives the boy some diluted ale if he'll quiet, when his eyes fall on a wheel of cheese resting, with only a small wedge missing, a few tables over.

"Hold on," he says, and goes to cut Alistair a piece.

It's a local cave-aged, one that he knows Eamon ordered just for him, because Eamon only eats the soft Orlesian-style cheeses, a preference he picked up in the Free Marches. He cuts off the thinnest, smallest hunk, and returns to Alistair. He holds it out and Alistair eyes it dubiously.

But the child takes it, nibbles it, and his eyes go wide.

Teagan relaxes as soon as that wide stare is joined by a vibrant smile, and as he goes to cut more, Alistair begins talking, babbling, words falling out in an incoherent mess that boils down to the fact that cheese is truly the Maker's gift, and that his short life is now complete.


	11. Sometimes [Marian/Garrett, Fade, M]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marian/Garrett, what happens in the Fade stays in the Fade.
> 
> M.

In the Fade, sometimes Garrett is a woman.

He still has his dark hair, a wicked smile, strong arms and powerful legs, but he is soft and curved and has glittering, dancing eyes. He dreams of this woman-he-is-not, sees through her eyes and sees her from afar. He wants her. He _is_ her in every particular except for form and voice, except for just how she stirs when she _wants_ and just how he stirs in response.

And one night, he dreams that they are there and separate, and in an instant he is against her, uncaring of what it might mean. He bites at her lip until he draws blood, and she does just the same in turn; fingers find lips and trail sticky red over the bridge of each other’s nose. They adorn each other in tandem, mirror images. They wrestle. They fuck. They kiss. They speak secrets with their lips and hips that nobody else knows.

He wakes to sticky sheets tangled around sweaty limbs, convinced that there is a woman just beside him in the bed. But there is nobody there, only an ache that can’t be satisfied, a longing that rests wholly within himself.

 

\--

 

In the Fade, sometimes Marian is a man.

Her dark hair remains close-cropped but a beard traces her firmer jaw. Her nose is stronger, too, her wrists thicker, her hips narrower. She marks the changes with drifting hands, delighting in angles she does not possess, lines that are like her but not like her. She is a man that she _wants_ , a man she has never seen but that seems to live inside of her.

Her fingernails scrape furrows into her thighs and belly as she feels her pleasure, _his_ , coil through her when she takes herself - _him_ \- in hand.

And then there are the dreams where she is a woman and he is a man outside of her, when they paint each other in sweat and blood, roll tangled on the ground, on silk, on stone. His beard burns against the tender skin of her inner thigh and he knows exactly how to kiss her to make her writhe, where to touch, where to push. He knows her, because he still is her.

When she rises, he rises too; when she falls upon him with lips and tongue he allows it, then rolls her over to take his turn on top. They brand one another, use one another, delight in one another until there is nothing left but a crackling dream, the Veil reforming and leaving her in bed, curled around her pillow.

There should have been _him_ there beside her, but there is only an ache she can never remove.


	12. Constant Vigilance [Bethany/Sebastian, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bethany/Sebastian, set during Legacy.
> 
> G.

She likes to pretend he doesn't know.

It's silly. He knows like everybody who has ever seen her fight knows, like everybody who has been close to her brother knows. He has seen her conjure ice from the air to melt into drinkable water and he has felt her patch his wounds with little teasing, imprecise threads of magic. They have been deep below the Vimmark Mountains for five days now, and there is no way he doesn't know.

She has even told him outright, when he called her Lady Hawke and her heart lodged in her throat and her pulse hammered in her ears, trying to push him away before she could find a tiny shard of hope in his affections.

But when he continues to flatter her, when he sits beside her when they make camp and she fumbles with flint and tinder to light a fire like any normal girl, she pretends. She's not a mage, or he doesn't know she's a mage, or he isn't or wasn't a dedicated Chantry brother. It's a dangerous line to walk, pretending. Souls have been lost with the need to give in to fantasy. She always tries to face the truth, strives to understand reality, but there in the dark with howls of darkspawn in the distance and the threat of something lurking in Garrett's blood, she pretends that this could happen.

The sunlight, when they emerge, will burn it all away - and if the literal sun does not, the waiting steel of templar escorts on her return to Kirkwall will, the flare of the Chantry bright and irrefutable.

But for now, she walks that edge. On the one side she balances the knowledge that it will never be. On the other she lets hope fly. It is a strict balance, one she must enforce, but seeing her father's memory flitting on the edges of the prison keeps her confident. She has been taught well. She knows how to be vigilant, how to control herself.

She only hopes that Sebastian knows as well.


	13. Gifts in the Offering [F!Surana/Orsino, T]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> F!Surana/Orsino.
> 
> T.

Neria Surana stares out at the gardens of the Cumberland Circle, tap-tapping her fingers against  the rail. It is strange, being crowded in by walls again in a place that hums with magic and the voices of mages and apprentices, the creak of templar armor. It is strange and gives her pause, stirs nerves long soothed by open skies and rolling fields, even if those fields were stained with blood and those skies heavy with storming clouds.

But she can leave at any time.

When the invitation from Wynne came to attend the College of Magi, Neria almost burned the letter. But it was a letter from Wynne, and so she kept it, she considered it, and finally, she accepted. She crossed Thedas to reach Nevarra, and now stands as if she never left the Circle.

Perhaps it would have been prudent to wear her Warden insignia, to mark her as not leashed, but Neria has always preferred soft and light robes.

"The Hero of Ferelden?" comes a Marcher-accented voice behind her, and she turns with a frown creasing her brow.

"Perhaps," she replies, in obfuscation learned from diplomacy and too many walks in the Fade. The man who addresses her watches her too, with wide green eyes beneath a broad forehead and a receeding, greying hairline.

He holds out a hand. "Orsino. First-enchanter of the Kirkwall Circle."

She takes it only slowly, trying not to enjoy how his hand does not engulf hers like a human's would. "Neria Surana."

"The Hero of Ferelden indeed," he says, smiling and inclining his head, then letting her hand drop. "There have been rumors you would be attending."

"I'm not sure why there's such interest in me. I have no research to present." None that the Circle or Chantry can hear, at least. She has spent the last year working, uncomfortably, with the Architect. She knows more than she has ever wished to, and whispers come now from the Vimmark Mountains, rumors that she knows she shouldn't have heard.

"You're the most famous mage in all of Thedas. That is reason enough, Warden."

"Neria," she corrects, leaning back against the railing and over it enough that she can feel the sun on her skin, gone tan from long days spent in its rays.

"Neria," he repeats with another small incline of his head, a minor bow.

 

\--

 

She studies the sculpted curves of his staff while he adjusts his robes behind her. The templars have been kind enough to give her a private room, though they stand guard just behind it - in this case, because Orsino has followed her to it.

It happened over dinner.

Five days of stealing moments in the curving colonnade halls bordering the large central gardens led to a discussion over dinner in heavy, thick words, heated by wine and passion, about theory and practice of spells, of fire, of animating the dead. He had leaned across the table towards her and she had leaned in as well. She had felt the warmth of his breath barely touching her cheek, though it could just have well been from the candle between them.

They talked long after the dining hall had cleared, the other visiting mages moving to late lectures or the gardens to talk and relax.

She invited him back to her room - for a respite from templar eyes, she told herself.

She told herself that until she settled on the couch beside him and slid a hand over his chest, along his shoulder, and up. She traced his jawline and kissed his lips, and he sighed into her mouth and reached for the hem of her robe.

 _I give you this - privacy and freedom_ , she'd whispered as an offering, and she had felt him shudder beneath her hands.


	14. The Long Vigil [Alistair, T]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair, gen.
> 
> T.
> 
> Warnings: Allusion to torture. Darkfic.

Fort Drakon is far from quiet at night. There are little noises everywhere, behind the bigger ones, and he can't close his eyes, can't bed down and save his strength. Alistair tries to tell himself that really, neither was camp, neither was Eamon's, neither was _anywhere_ he's ever tried to sleep, but this is wholly and undeniably different.

Most places he's slept, including the Deep Roads, did not echo with screams and whimpers and the smack of wood and metal on flesh, the rattle of chains, the creak of wheels.

The brutality of men to one another is something he's never truly had to face, not like this. Darkspawn aren't people. The Deep Roads are cruel, violent, disturbing- but not like this. This is worse, infinitely worse, and though he has followed Daylen's advice, has held back his trust and watched others warily, nothing could have prepared him.

They took Daylen away an hour ago, two, somewhere in what seems like the distant past as well as just seconds earlier. He had shouted then. He had railed. He had tried to protect his closest comrade, and Daylen had looked at him and just shook his head, lips pressed to a thin line. He had tipped his fingers forward in what Alistair wants to think was forgiveness, was a motion of strength. When the guard had dragged them from Howe's estate, Loghain's lieutenant had ordered the mage's hands bound. Alistair had watched as bandages were used to constrain him, binding each finger to its pair, strapping his palms together until Daylen was forced to stand as if praying.

And Daylen had taken it all stoically. Alistair had assumed that the other man knew something he didn't, had some hope that Alistair could not conceive of. He'd followed the man through haunted forests, dwarven thaigs, castles howling with the shrieks of undead.

He'd followed him to this prison.

Now Alistair lies curled on his side, back to the wall of the cage that faces the pit. He saw it on entering, the chipped stone stairs stained with blood both old and new leading down to cages, to manacles, to racks, to all sorts of things he refuses to imagine. But there is little left to leave to the imagination. They have had Daylen down there for a lifetime.

Alistair has heard everything, and he hopes desperately, selfishly, that help will arrive before it is his turn to face their captors stretched out at their mercy. As they'd been led through the streets, wrists lashed before them and pulled behind horses, Daylen had whispered _They'll come for us_.

But Daylen loves a mercenary, cold-hearted shrew of an apostate and is only close with the Antivan, and Alistair is not sure if either will come to their aid.

He tries to think of the long wait as a vigil. He never took his, of course, not the long vigil to be named a templar, but there were others. He has sat up long nights staring at a burning flame and he has watched the woods or the caverns or the halls while the others have slept. He has marched past fatigue, past exhaustion, and collapsed only when the road was safe. He has faced worse.

But the cries coming from the pit, Daylen's cries, are impossible to ignore. At first Daylen had been silent, controlled. And then had come the battle cries, the angry shouts, the protests, the defiance. Alistair had heard words shouted by their captors then, too. _Orlesians. Plots. Sedition_. He had focused, though, on how Daylen persisted, how he withstood.

And then had come the screams and the whimpers, the sobs, the pleas.

Daylen doesn't make those sounds. Daylen is their fearless leader, _his_ fearless leader, and that was the moment when Alistair had turned away fully. His body has only aches from the bonds around his wrists, his skin marred by bruises and cuts from their guards. They had been stripped down to their smalls on arrival, Ser Cauthrien watching, impassive, the whole while. Alistair's armor had been set aside whole, likely to be given to the guard or sold for funds, whatever little bit would help Loghain. Daylen's robes, though, had been cut off of his body to avoid unbinding his hands.

If rescue does come, Alistair hopes they bring pants.

It's an idle, meandering thought, and it makes him laugh weakly. He's exhausted and his heart hammers in his chest, trying to find an escape of its own, but he's still making Blighted jokes. If Daylen could see him now-

He hears another of Daylen's broken cries, and he banishes the image.

What did he think about on all those long nights he has sat up waiting? But there's no point in thinking of giant slobbering dogs from the Anderfels, no point in making jokes, even to himself, about Orlesian cheeses. All he can strive for is utter blankness.

He prays that he will be able to sleep before they come for him.

There are no windows in the bowels of Fort Drakon, but Alistair is certain it must be dark already. Is it the dead of night? Grey dawn? Early morning? How long have they had Daylen, to draw those sounds from him? How long will it take to drag them from Alistair?

Not long enough. He doesn't want to give them the satisfaction, but though he takes blows in battle and rushes in first to protect the rest, it's not the same as being stretched out belly to the sky by trained torturers on the pay of somebody as paranoid, as ruthless as Loghain. He had no hope.

For the first time in months, Alistair says a quiet prayer to the Maker. He finds the words of the Chant, memorized so grudgingly, and they are the first sound that has passed his lips since they pulled Daylen away by his contorted, bound hands and he shouted _No, no, take me first!_ and _You can't do this, you can't_ ** _do_** _this!_ Then, he'd shouted to whoever was in the room, whether they paid him attention or not. He rattled the bars. He called out to Daylen. He fought. 

He's not fighting anymore.

When he runs out of appropriate Chant verses, he repeats them again. He scrambles for anything at all to fill the air. He speaks verses that have nothing to do with perseverance, reciting the tale of Andraste to himself, the little details of which he learned because of how much like an adventure story it was. He repeats little limericks he's heard, one or two of Teagan's favorite ballads, a pale approximation of one of Leliana's songs. He sings, even, off-key and hoarse and quiet. He fills the not-quiet with sounds of his own, and finally, those words drown out what waits outside of his cage.

He loses track of time, but he's mumbling the words of Transfigurations in broken half-sentences when he hears the scraping drag of flesh on stone, the rattle of keys. He doesn't roll over, doesn't even let himself think _my turn_. A lock turns in a key and he hears the soft groan of Daylen Amell as he is dropped without ceremony to the floor. There's the scent of blood thick on the air, a metallic tang in the back of Alistair's throat, but he pushes it aside. He has not finished reciting Transfigurations. There are still- what? Eight verses left? Ten? He doesn't rightly remember, but he does know that he isn't done.

There are footsteps. A shout, from somewhere far away. Daylen shifts against the stone with painful slowness- and then the world explodes into fire just beyond the darkness of Alistair's closed eyelids and he feels the heat on his skin. There are voices in the flame, an Antivan accent and the archaic speech of a Witch of the Wilds.

And when Transfigurations is finished and the room is silent except for the running footsteps of Zevran and Morrigan, he lets himself thank the Maker for hearing his plea and sparing him this time.


	15. Of Married Men and Trees [Alistair & M!Tabris, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair & M!Tabris, gen.
> 
> G.

"You were almost married?"

"I like to think that I actually was." Darrian Tabris's smile was tight as he leaned back against the tree he sat up in. Alistair watched him from below, sitting on the ground with his legs bent at the knee. His feet were swollen and he was grateful for Darrian's suggestion of stopping for a long break, but he hadn't meant it to go quite like this.

Speaking of childhoods and homes had led somehow to how Darrian had been recruited into the Wardens, and Alistair wasn't sure he liked where the story was going.

But Darrian didn't seem inclined to finish it. The tree held his attention more. They are a week out of Redcliffe, a month out of Lothering, but they had just recently reached a place where the trees were easy and safe to climb. Darrian spent more and more time up in them whenever they were stopped. Leliana had taken to teasing him, and Alistair had made more than his fair share of comments, but slowly, he was coming to understand.

There were no trees in the Alienage, none except the one Darrian called _vhenadahl_ , so of course Darrian wanted to know what they were like. Alistair had scraped his hands and calves on tree bark as a child even living in Eamon's home, had fallen out of many of them. Darrian hadn't had that.

He'd had a lot of pain; that was what Alistair understood.

He felt foolish, so foolish, for asking half the questions he's put to the elf. This was only the latest of a long string of placing his foot firmly in his mouth. Perhaps, he thought, he should take up praying again, if only to ask the Maker to plant his toes firmly on the soil and out of any orifices.

"I'm sorry," he tried. "We don't need to talk about it. At all, really, if you don't want. I mean, not that I wouldn't listen, but-"

An acorn, green and half-grown, dropped onto his head and he looked up just in time for another to hit him squarely on the nose.

"Hey!"

Darrian laughed, a rare sound from the man but a welcome one all the same, a genuine one. "Apology accepted," he said, hopping down the larger branches until he had to clamber down the trunk, long fingers wrapping around smaller handholds. He added nothing about his past, about talking, about wanting to be heard.

Alistair scratched at the back of his head, thinking of all the times that Darrian had asked him to go on, had said that his ramblings were okay. It didn't seem fair.

"Right, well," he tried, but Darrian shook his head and clapped a hand on Alistair's shoulder as he passed.

"How are your feet? We should get moving again."

"But it's only been an hour!" he complained, feeling like a little boy even though he knew that Darrian was a good two years younger than he. But the man, for all his slight, young features, is large blue eyes and pale red hair, his quickness and his lack of brute strength, was becoming a strong leader, a powerful one, and Alistair knew he would follow no matter if he had to crawl from lack of available feet.

Darrian knew it, too. He grabbed one of Alistair's wrists (his other hand holding a bunch of leaves, a few more acorns) and hauled him up to standing. "Half an afternoon. The sun is an hour's trip from the horizon. Only three months away from Denerim and evenI know that."

"The wisdom of a married man," Alistair said, and then winced.

But Darrian only grinned. "Exactly."


	16. The Living [Architect/Utha, T]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Architect/Utha.
> 
> T.

They do not kiss the way the living do.

She has no tongue, and he has only the vaguest of ideas as to how the act is performed, and so it's more a touch of lips to lips, breath to breath, down there in the dark. But he insists, because he wants to understand the living, and she insists, because she wants to understand _him_. So they play at kisses, at tender touches, and every time he pulls away to ask,

 _You truly want this? It will only make you change faster still_.

she gives him a look that says

 _Shut up, fool Architect, and satisfy me_

because Utha is demanding and harsh and powerful, and she fascinates every inch of him. Long years together have twined them close, and he cannot deny her, even though a part of him twinges at the thought of her bloated and twisted into a Broodmother.

He studies that aching part carefully, when they lie exhausted, finished, and she manages grim smiles. She is, he believes, resigned to her fate, and hastening or slowing it have little meaning. The form it will take has little meaning.

He's crafted her into a sentient ghoul, perfect and his, and he's let her in to all of his secret worlds, all of his plans. He would keep her like this, always. But her final transformation- that still lingers ahead, and she seems to run fast towards it through the gloom.

He wonders if, perhaps, these touches are a form of suicide.

 


	17. Of Fish and Ducks [Fenris/Isabela, T]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fenris/Isabela.
> 
> T.

"No."

Isabela gazed up at him placidly from the tub for a moment, then sighed and flopped back against the rim. "You need a bath. Come on."

"I do not  _need a bath_ ," he said, shaking his head and crossing his arms over his bared chest.

"If  _I_  need one after that little stunt we just pulled, then you  _definitely_  do."

"Fish," he muttered, and she couldn't help but laugh, stretching as she did so.

"Exactly, come here. And-" Isabela leaned out of the tub, turning and giving him a show (that he didn't make a comment on but she knew he watched), "I have two presents for you."

"Presents?"

"Mm, presents. Gifts! The best kind, the ones I didn't have to pay for either."

Fenris sighed, and behind her she heard the sound of him rolling his leggings off, then the splash and rise of warm water against her ribs, tickling the underside of her breats, as he slipped in. The tub was small and he soon wrapped one arm around her.

"What gifts?" he rumbled, close to her ear, and she laughed, looking back over her shoulder.

She tossed one of the objects behind her and into the water.

Fenris snorted.

"A  _duck_?"

"A yellow one!" Isabela replied, leaning further out so that he would pull her back in. As he settled her against his chest, his other hand picking up the yellow, floating toy, she dropped a fistful of colored, scented salts into the water.

Fenris paused.

"This smells-" he started, then hummed, pressing his nose and lips to Isabela's neck. "This smells like Seheron."

"Happy Feastday, you lout," she said.


	18. Kingliness [Alistair/Zevran, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alistair/Zevran.
> 
> G.

“So what do I do with it?” Alistair asked, frowning at the amber liquid in his glass. His  _glass_  -Maker, that was an odd idea. Gone were wooden and tin tankards and in their place was… was… imported glass.

Kingliness.

Right.

“You drink it,” his companion said, easily, settling back in his cushioned seat and propping his feet up on the table between them.

“Right.” It was definitely alcohol. He could smell it just holding it in his hands. But there was no foam head, no ale-y smell, and he dubiously lifted it to his lips.

“Ah!” Zevran said, holding up a hand. “Careful. Small sips. Don’t breathe in too much.”

“Rules,” he muttered, and drank half of it.

He ended up sputtering and nearly dropping the glass in surprise, Zevran moving forward in a smooth arc to take it from him and set it down on the table. His shoulders shook with laughter while Alistair stared at the liquid.

“ _Maker_ ,” he squeaked out, finally. “What  _is_  that?”

“Antivan brandy, my friend. Goes straight to the heart and warms it. I thought it appropriate - not to mention tasty.” He smiled broadly, lifting his own glass and taking a more measured sip.

“Appropriate,” Alistair coughed, before burying his face in his hands and carding his fingers through his hair, the eightieth, ninetieth time that night.  _She’s gone_ , he thought, jaw clenching. She had been for weeks. He was alone in a palace with his brother’s wife locked in a tower, sitting around and drinking unknown substances with an assassin. Maker, but was this his life now?

He wished she was still there, that she hadn’t abandoned him and then gone off to die.

Zevran  _tsk_ ed where he sat, then rose up in one fluid motion to step around the table and behind the newly crowned King of Ferelden. He settled long-fingers hands on Alistair’s shoulders, beginning to knead at the muscles.

“Don’t want a blasted  _Antivan massage_ ,” Alistair muttered.

Zevran laughed, a light little thing, then patted his shoulder. “That isn’t what I’m offering, my friend.”

“Yeah?”

“Not unless you want it.”


	19. Sunburst [Bethany/Leliana, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warden!Bethany/Leliana.
> 
> G.

It’s  _her_  stories that Bethany takes into the Deep Roads.

Bethany can carry little on these trips. Her pack is filled with rations, water, poultices and bandages, even when brontos follow them down into the dark. She can barely tuck her old scarf with it all, let alone trinkets from the surface, mementos, bits and pieces of the past. Even memories can’t be carried into the dark, not ones of home or of family. She must fight, and to fight means to be only as she is - tainted, driven, and deadly.

But around the fires they build when they decide it’s night, she tells stories learned from a red-headed Orlesian Sister in Lothering. And when she beds down, face pressed into her roll of clothing for the next day and thin blanket barely keeping out the chill, it is Leliana’s voice that tells her new ones.

—

They meet four years after that fateful expedition. At first, Bethany doesn’t recognize her. It’s crowded in Val Royeaux and Bethany has places to be, places to  _go_ , duties to lose herself in. She shoulders through the crowd, into an open plaza, and takes the momentary freedom of movement to stretch, to find her bearings.

The Chant drifts through the air, beautiful and unending, and it can still bring a smile to Bethany’s lips even after all that has gone before. She pauses, face tilted to the sun spilling into the city, and it as if the light of the Maker has for a moment freed the darkness festering inside of her.

“Bethany? Is that you?” comes a quiet, lilting voice, Orlesian-accented but carrying the oddest hint of Fereldan. Bethany blinks and turns, and can’t help her stare, her flickering smile.

“Sister Leliana?”

“I thought it was you,” the older woman says, smile blossoming over her features. She reaches forward and takes Bethany’s hands, then leans in to kiss her cheek in greeting. It’s Orlesian, Bethany reminds herself - but it still makes her stomach twist and flutter.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” Bethany murmurs as Leliana doesn’t quite draw away. “Lothering-“

“I was gone before the darkspawn arrived,” Leliana says with a small shake of her head.

“And you came to Orlais?”

“Eventually.” Her fingers lace for a moment with Bethany’s, and Bethany is caught in memories of summer days in what was almost  _home_ , sitting by the great windmill and listening to this woman tell stories. Then, she had wondered what it would be like to rest her head on her shoulder. To take her hand. To kiss her.

And now she’s wondering that again, even as Leliana finally pulls away.

“Those are Warden colors,” she says, smile turning conspiratorial. “Things have changed, I see.”

Bethany blushes.

“You look good in them,” Leliana adds. “You look lovely. You always were beautiful.”

Bethany toes the ground, and bites her lip to try and keep her darkness inside of her. It would be a shame to shadow and blot out this woman’s light. But it spills out, as it always does. “Something tainted is hardly beautiful, Sister,” she mumbles, tucking her hair back behind her ear with her free hand. “But thank you.”

“I have known beautiful Wardens in my time,” Leliana murmurs, squeezing her hand. “And you are the loveliest of them.”

Bethany looks up, startled and open-mouthed, and Leliana only smiles.

“Come,” she says, “let me steal you from duty for a few hours. I want to hear everything I have missed.”

—

Bethany forgets what she meant to be doing. The sunset is beautiful over the city, the wine is good, and Leliana is warm against her side. The Sister’s arm slips around her waist and Bethany learns what it feels like to rest her head on her shoulder.

And for the first time in four years, Bethany does not feel the weight and the shadow of her darkness so heavily. For the first time, she almost feels normal.

—

In the Deep Roads, she tells herself again the stories Leliana taught her and crafts stories anew in her voice. One day, Bethany will tell her all of them. One day, Leliana will put her words to song, and make her blush and squirm and laugh. One day, Leliana will breathe them against her skin.

But  _one day_  is not  _today_  and she fights with the fury of Andraste to find her way back to Orlais. Every darkspawn felled is another step closer to the surface, to sun, to Leliana. Each darkspawn felled is a tribute to the woman who journeyed once with the Warden, who knows already about the nightmares and the horrors, about what awaits. Bethany pushes forward, and the darkness does not seem so thick or endless.


	20. Coming to Heel [Cauthrien & Loghain, T]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cauthrien & Loghain, gen.
> 
> T.

Cauthrien’s long strides took her to the room Loghain had holed himself up in just as Rendon Howe slipped out the door, a tanned and tattooed elf at his heel. She didn’t spare them a glance, though it was impossible not to hear the laughing whisper of  _she’s a farmer’s mongrel bitch girl, coming to heel_.

If she was forced to stay in Denerim, she didn’t know how she would stand the man - or keep an eye on all the palms he greased and backs he stabbed.

“My lord,” she said as she closed the door behind her. He had a full goblet of wine - and two empty bottles on the table. He stood in full armor despite the heat of the approaching summer and the fire he clung to, despite the fact that there were no enemies here to strike him down, and she swallowed, straightening her shoulders.

He glanced to her, the barest movement of his head. “Cauthrien,” he greeted, his voice more gravel than usual. “… so there is to be a civil war, after all.”

Twinned twists of horror and triumph mixed in her and caught her throat for just a moment. Ferelden, at war with itself - but this she could do, and this she could win for him. She would make them understand.

“I see, my lord,” she said, bowing. “Shall I get the men moving, then?”

“Yes.” She watched as he lifted the beaten metal to his lips, drank deep. “… but you are not going.”

“My lord?” Dread entered the roiling mix, and she clenched her jaw, hands fisting behind her back.

He didn’t turn to her. “You will be replacing the Captain of the Guard. I need you here. Pick a trusted lieutenant, and give your orders.”

“Abandon my men-“

“It is not abandoning. If they will listen, and if you have the skill that I have trained you to have, the war will be over in a month.” Another drink, another movement of his sallow throat. “ _Go_.”

She stared.  _Captain of the Guard_ , while Rendon Howe was Arl and her Regent sat in a too-hot room and drank and had his skin rubbed raw with armor he shouldn’t have been wearing. Rendon’s words echoed as she flexed her fingers.

 _A farmer’s mongrel bitch girl, coming to heel_.

For one wild moment, she thought of disobeying, of saying  _no_ , like she couldn’t on the field at Ostagar. But Ferelden needed her. And if it needed her here…

She could not say no.


	21. Lost [Merrill/Carver, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merrill/Templar!Carver.
> 
> G.

He hasn’t slept in over a day, and  _that,_ he reasons, is why he thinks he sees her. Because she can’t be there,  _can’t_  be there, and he’s already wavering on his feet anyway, seeing ghosts and regrets in the corners.

But then he hears her voice.

“Psst.  _Psst_!” and her accent is even in hilariously too-loud awkward whispering. His heart flips and his stomach decides that it has cooked completely inside his heavy armor, and he tries not to turn.  _Ghosts_ , he reminds himself.  _Temptation_ , but the word takes on a thicker feel to it, and he has to swallow.

“Oh come, I know that’s you,” and now he can’t ignore it,  _can’t_ , and Maker take him but he turns.

Merrill’s bright green eyes peer at him out of the shadows.

He swallows again and, with a quick look around, goes to her. “What are you doing here?” he whispers, and she blinks up at him. “Are you seriously lost?  _This_  lost? It’s the Gallows, Merrill!”

“Oh, is it?” she asks, and he wants to shake her, or at least carry her to safety. But then she- she  _winks_ \- “Silly me, I had no idea. Now, where’s that yarn ball from Varric…”

“Merrill, you can’t be here,” he says, and he crosses his arms to keep from reaching for her.

“Then I’m not here,” she returns, and if he’s never quite heard so much _knowing_  in her voice, he attributes to too many years spent around his brother. “I just wanted to see you. I haven’t seen you in  _ages_. It’s like they’ve got you as locked up as all the mages, you know.”

“It’s- sort of. Not really. Merrill-“

“And now I’ve seen you.” She quirks another smile, then reaches out to pat his pauldron. “And I’ll be safe as rain back across the bay before you can say  _Vhen’alas_.”

“I-” He stares at her, even as she backs up, waves, then turns and disappears from wherever she came from.

 _Vhen’alas_ , he thinks, and then whispers it to be sure. “ _Vhen’alas_.”

If he hears her whisper, ”You accent is terrible,” he knows for sure that it isn’t her. She’d only have giggled, after all.


	22. Erasure [Cauthrien/Danarius, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cauthrien/Danarius, dubcon.
> 
> G.

When she took the job, she thought it would be easy. She thought it would be distant, the work of a hired sword, the work of a trophy. Orlesians wanted her for the joke of it, Loghain Mac Tir’s dragon in their home or their bed. But the Tevinters - they wanted her because she was good.

Because she was one of the best.

If she wasn’t a bodyguard, that hadn’t seemed to matter. The man who hired her, a magister, had built the position around what she could do. She could look intimidating. She could command men. She could disappear into herself.

The man beneath her hands screamed, and she flayed another strip of skin from his back.

There was nothing to be gained from this but pain and death, and she buried herself as she worked.  _Make an example,_ Danarius had said.  _Make him understand his transgressions_. She had tortured men before, had pulled answers from them, had pulled truths and lies. This was different.

This man knew nothing.

She worked.

Danarius met her outside the chamber doors, clad in summer robes, airy things made of fine silks and gauzy cottons. He wore a smile on his face; it was not his, but he donned it as needed, just as he donned the rings that spotted his fingers as he reached for her. He settled a hand against her shoulder and guided her out of the small building and onto the larger grounds of his villa.

“Splendid work,” he said, and Cauthrien didn’t respond except to keep her eyes focused ahead. He was no Loghain. He had all the charisma in the world and no purpose behind him, except his own power. Three years ago, she would not have followed him. Three years ago, she would have rather died.

Strange, what three years wandering Thedas with nothing could do to a woman and her convictions.

She expected him, when he was done his orating, his chatter that was carefully calculated, perfectly timed, that he would walk away from her, leave her to herself. She waited for it. But his hand remained on her shoulder, guiding her along, until they had passed the entrance to the barracks. He led her instead through the gardens to the main building, and from those doors down halls and stairways to a lower work room.

“Sit,” he told her as he closed the door behind him.

It was a stone room, channels carved in the floor, the walls, the ceiling. A stone table lay in the middle of it. There was only one chair, over-stuffed and upholstered in leather. Danarius watched her expectantly until she eased herself down.

He went to the little stand beside it and poured her a glass of wine. “Do you enjoy the work you do for me, Ser Cauthrien?” he asked as he handed it to her, fingers brushing hers. She did not flinch, taking the glass and drinking deeply from it.

She gave him no answer, and he chuckled.

He leaned down, lips brushing her ear. Her eyes shuttered and she frowned. He had never been quite so bold, but the way his hand returned to her shoulder-

“Do you feel alone, Ser Cauthrien?”

Slowly, she nodded. She had felt alone since she had let her lord die. She had felt alone since she had been forced from Ferelden. She had felt alone… for longer than she cared to think. And now she felt cut off even from herself, from the good in her, the passion in her, everything human that made up her soul, her body.

“I can take that away from you, if you’d like.” He smiled against her ear, a curling of lips she could barely feel. And then he bit, and she jerked, wine spilling as blood ran down the curve of it. She opened her mouth to protest, tried to turn, but her limbs wouldn’t work.

She couldn’t move.

“I would make you other than you are,” he murmured, hands skimming down her shoulders and urging her slowly, inexorably to her feet. “I would take away the knowledge of what you have lost. I would make you anew, whole and undeniable. Would you give yourself to me?”

It was her voice but not herself that responded, “Yes.”

“Good. Then, to me. I will take even your name.”

She stepped forward, eyes fixed on the table. Danarius followed behind her, the patter of blood from a wound he must have opened on himself the only sound. Her hands touched the stone.

“You will go to sleep a broken woman. And I will raise you up a deadly serpent.”


	23. The Book of Shartan [Velanna/Cauthrien, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justice!Velanna/Jormungandr!Cauthrien. Can be seen as a continuation of Erasure.
> 
> Written for GreyTaliesin.
> 
> G.

“Teach me,” Jormungandr says, coiled up in the corner of the dingy tavern bedroom on the outskirts of Nevarra City. “I want to know… this. I want to know what we’re doing.”

Velanna can’t help her flash of anger. Once, Justice had told her that she had to try to  _teach them_ , and if they did not listen, then she would have done all she could. Now he understands, better than she could have ever explained to him or  _taught_  him. And she will not teach this woman, even if she is a former slave and sympathetic and a powerful ally, at least as far as swords go.

So instead she reaches into her pack and pulls out a worn down book, throwing it at the other woman’s feet.

“Read it for yourself.” And then she hesitates. “… Can you read?” The Warden had taught her how to read beyond some scattered words, and now she feels shame trying to rise and burn in her cheeks. She doesn’t let it. The pieces of her she thinks are most Justice roil and seethe for a moment, whispering  _this isn’t your job_.

And then Jormungandr nods, slowly, uncurling and bending down off her chair to pick it up. “Yes. I think so, anyway.” Her lyrium-burned fingers drift over the spine, then part the pages. “This is-“

“The Book of Shartan,” Velanna says, curt and quick but with her anger fading. “You’ll hear not how it began, but how it was almost won.  _Almost_. This time, we won’t let them drive us out.”


	24. The Song [Velanna/Cauthrien, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justice!Velanna/Jormungandr!Cauthrien. Continuation of Book of Shartan.
> 
> Written for GreyTaliesin
> 
> G.

_Lyrium_. The part of her that was Justice knew it almost before she even saw them pulse into brightness, blurring Jormungandr’s outline until she was nothing but light that could cleave a man in two, nearly flesh made magic. The part of her yearned towards it, while the Dalish in her crept around the boundaries carefully.  _Lyrium_  was rare to her still, enticing but unknown, an element to be weighed and judged.

It took an entire month before the moment came when they brushed hands and Velanna didn’t die from the contact.

 _Lyrium_  made her mouth water and her eyes fixate on the intricate lines and whorls on Jormungandr’s face, marking her as  _other_  to the point where she could no more escape notice than Velanna could. It cracked her skin like Justice cracked Velanna’s when he gained ascendency enough to be _separate_  for just a moment, just a fight. They stradled the Veil with every heartbeat.

It was six months before Jormungandr crouched beside her in a battle they were not winning and pressed her hand to Velanna’s mouth and told her to _draw_.

The power had flooded through her, intoxicating and transcendent, and before she had risen back to her feet, the earth answering her cries, she saw Jormungandr shudder and sigh. Even after, her heart did not return to normal beating, but the warrior attributed it to bad memories. Her magister lord ordering it of her. The memory of being used.  _You didn’t use me_ , the woman assured her,  _but I remembered_. Velanna doubted.

It was a year before Jormungandr - Cauthrien, now, Cauthrien with a whispered identity, a history, a  _name_ , a role in the selling of city elves in Denerim but now a warrior for  _her_  - got drunk on too much whiskey after they parted, heated words hanging between them. It had been a year since they first met when Velanna went looking for her not three hours after their argument, to resolve it or continue it she didn’t know. It was at the end of that first year that Cauthrien dragged her close and kissed her, lyrium flaring and Velanna responding, seeking out the lines on her cheek and chin and throat until all she knew was the song of it.

 _The song_.

It was lovely, and it was more than earthly, and it was a respite from the unending anger, anguish, pain,  _hatred_ , need, determination. It was no Dalish song and at the same time it was  _every_  Dalish song.

It was a respite.

For a night, Justice rested, and so did she.


	25. In Pursuit of Knowledge [F!Hawke/Genitivi, T]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> F!Hawke/Genitivi.
> 
> Written for [dragonagedrabbles](http://dragonagedrabbles.tumblr.com).
> 
> T.

_The Vimmark Mountains are an impressive and bleak spine sectioning off the shores of the Waking Sea around Kirkwall from the rest of the Free Marches. There is little there in the way of settlements, but rumors of a Warden outpost drift out of the land from time to time. Though lonely_

“Lonely?” Marian asked, huffing and sliding her arms around his waist. “Oh, yes,  _lonely_.”

“Hush,” he mumbled, dipping his quill into the inkpot she had so thoughtfully provided. “A scholar cannot include too much of himself in his work. I am not your dwarven friend.”

“Mm, well,  _that’s_  for certain.” Her teeth caught the lobe of his ear and he sighed.

“Marian,” he cautioned.

“Fine,” she said, then settled her chin on his shoulder.

 _Though lonely, the landscape possesses its own unique beauty. Its peaks and valleys provide ample opportunity for exploration, though the traveler is advised to be prepared to face adversity in pursuit of its wonders_.

“Like Fenris nearly cutting your head off that first time?” Marian asked, nuzzling at his neck.

“Yes,” he said with a small laugh. “Like that.”

“And its peaks and valleys? Maker, you’re talking about my tits, aren’t you?” She nipped at his ear again, and his laugh turned to a chuckle.

“Perhaps.”

 _I arrived there after much time spent in the Planasene Forest, and was delighted in the change of landscape. To say that climbing above the tree level was a delight is an understatement, as is to say that the stars visible from its peaks were beautiful._

“I’m not sure what you’re referencing now, but I like it,” Marian purred, and her hands slid down his chest, his stomach, to the waistband of his pants. “Come back to bed, love.”

“A minute longer, my dear.” Another dip into the ink, a few more scrawled lines.

 _Its roads are dangerous but its rewards great, truly a testament to the Maker’s skill. This humble scholar submits the Vimmark Mountains to one of the many wonders of Thedas_.

She laughed as she dragged him from his seat by the fire and led him back to her bed. “My very own Chantry scholar, writing blasphemy about my body in the guise of a treatise on landscapes,” she said with a grin.

He caught an arm around her waist as he bore her back onto the mattress. “Not blasphemy,” he murmured against her throat. “Truth, as truth is seen.”

“Sometimes I wonder just what you are, to have seen so much,” she sighed, head falling back against her pillows as he moved to unbelt her robes. “And to be  _good_  at so much-  _Maker_!”

“A question for another time,” he breathed, smiling against her breast.

 _\- From_ In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of A Chantry Scholar _, by Brother Genitivi_


	26. The Gates [Cullen & the Arishok, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cullen & the Arishok, gen.
> 
> Written for [dragonagedrabbles](http://dragonagedrabbles.tumblr.com).
> 
> G.

The gates to the Qunari encampment are only wood. They are not stone or metal, and they could not truly keep much in or out. Cullen stares up at them, wondering for just a moment about the symbol of it: how it is respected, how it is unquestioned, how it  _is_  for both sides. The faithful do not cross it except when necessary. The Qunari do not do so except for the same.

 _The faithful_.

He steps into the compound once the gates have been opened, flanked by four lieutenants, and he crosses the sun-drenched stone, past fine fabrics and strong men. They have the conviction of Andraste herself, but in all of the wrong things.  _Heathens_ , he reminds himself.

And yet when he stands before their Arishok, he feels his soul falter. The Arishok is tall and broad and does not cover himself with steel. He does not hide. His skin is painted in patterns that speak of assistance from his fellows, and his men stand at his side without question. There is no fidgeting in the Kirkwall summer sun, there are no distant looks of recruits or even ordained templars gone daydreaming. He is certain.  _They_  are certain.

Cullen does not feel so much.

He clears his throat, and waits.

“Speak,  _Basra_ ,” the Arishok says, and his voice is a thousand-horse cavalary, is an Exalted March in every sound.

 _But my faith sustains me; I shall not fear the legion should they set themselves against me_ , he whispers to himself. Cullen squares his shoulders, but feels sweat on his brow and around his throat from the heat, from his nerves. 

“Three of our recruits have gone missing in the last week,” he says, and is pleased that his voice does not waver. “We have reason to believe they have come here.”

“And what would you have me do?”

“Return them to our custody; they seek the service of the Maker, and a momentary lapse-“

“It is no momentary lapse,” the Arishok interupts, and Cullen does not argue, does not force the words from his throat. “They have decided. They have chosen to  _be_.”

Cullen hears the uncertain shifting behind him, boots on stone, metal on metal. He wants to exhort them to remain firm in their faith. It unsettles him that  _uncertainty_  comes before anger, comes before disgust, now that they are faced with this man. In the safety of the Gallows, it is easy to hate, easy to set against, easy to distrust.

Here, he feels only awe.

“Let me speak with them, at least,” he says at last.

The Arishok fixes him in his gaze.

“No.”

“But-“

“They have made their choice,  _Basra_. Your Order provides nothing of its name. It never will. It will never grant the certainty that is the Qun. Those who formerly called themselves yours will no longer. It is as it should be. _They_  are wise among your kind.” The Arishok waves his hand, then shakes his head, rising to his feet.

“We are done,” he says.

Cullen knows he should protest, knows he should argue, force the issue, _drag his men back_  from these heathens if he must. But instead he only nods, only salutes, only turns away.

Outside of the wooden gates, he cannot accept it. But here, beneath the sun and confronted with this House of Tides, he must admit to himself that perhaps, in some ways, the Order and the purpose of the Maker will never measure up. He can envy for just that one moment the certainty. The strength.

And then he leads his men out, and the gates shut behind him.


	27. Ties [Cauthrien/Teagan, modern AU, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cauthrien/Teagan, modern AU.
> 
> Written for Cherith.
> 
> G.

  
It started with just ties.

It really did; it was their anniversary and she couldn’t think of what to get him, except she’d ruined one of his ties by wrapping it around her fist too tightly too many times. She could, she supposed, have gotten him a gun. Nice scotch. But it all seemed silly when he could buy the city three times over and still have money left to spare.

The tie, at least, had something to do with  _them_.

Somehow, though, shopping for a nice enough tie had led to suit shopping had led to contacting Teagan’s tailor on the sly, and now she was being forced to actually select a  _suit_ , something Italian, something perfect for him that would make her unable to keep her hands off of him, and she was doing it alone and with no real knowledge of what she was doing. Suits. Suits resided outside her area of expertise, unless she counted taking them off of him. Over a year, and she still didn’t quite have a handle on dressing herself like he requested of her, all clean lines and intimidating poise.

But she really thought he would like what she had found. She hoped. The hand of the wool was more than pleasant, the colors just what he liked but with a little twist - and it would be from her.

Because Maker knew how it happened, but Teagan Guerrin had been in love with her for over a year, and she was shopping for an anniversary present while he was probably looking for a  _ring_.


	28. Out of Mind [Cauthrien & Flemeth, G]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Following on one of the options in _[Cauthrien, Five Ways](http://archiveofourown.org/works/290852)_.

It is early winter, and at the estate in Arleans, in northern Orlais, that means the time has come for fox hunts. She has never taken to the sport, though her husband teases that as a Fereldan she should enjoy the barking of the dogs, the hunt. He doesn’t understand that sometimes it is all too easy to feel like the hounded fox, and that in a winter (without snow, with barely rain, with none of the familiar mud) that isn’t hers, surrounded by voices that are not the voices of home, she slips into that feeling like the armor she has been forced to give up.

But she has been married now for five years, spying for her country and attempting not to lose herself every time the courier burns her letters. She knows the courier memorizes them as the paper burns, but that does not make seeing it easier. The most recent one was burned before her just a fortnight earlier, and she swears she can still smell the ash in the sumptuous furs she’s been dressed in.

She feels ridiculous. The horse she rides is not a war horse, but a quick pony fit for a painted lady instead. Her husband has yet to convince her to paint her face, but she is corseted and trimmed in fur and silk, a prize and a reminder of how she has beenconquered. At least this hunt, she is allowed to ride by herself. The party goes one way into the forest. She goes another.

She rides long enough that she can almost forget herself and where she is, and when the next words she hears are in Trade and not Orlesian-accented in the least, she can’t shake the feeling she has stumbled into a dream.

“Well, well,” the voice says, “what have we here?”

It is not a Fereldan voice, and it’s only a hundred heartbeats before she remembers to be on her guard, turning her horse as quickly as she can and reaching for the small, decorative blade at her hip. Her guard should be somewhere behind her, but she can’t hear them.

It begins to snow, and all sound becomes muffled except for the approaching step of a figure from the dark.

A woman emerges, pale haired and golden-eyed, and clad in clothing, in armor, that Cauthrien has never seen. She pulls up her horse and stares down at the woman.

“I asked a question,” the woman says, smirk never leaving her lips.

“Cauthrien de Caritat,” she says, and like always, she flinches at how well her given name flows into the mark of conquest. “And you, who would trespass on my lord’s lands?”

It stings, too, to hear those words in Trade and not in Orlesian, where she can pretend they are a game (or, perhaps, a Game - one that she refuses to become conversant with or to play, though that grows more dangerous by the year). Still, she holds herself proudly - as a soldier, if not a lady.

The woman chuckles. “Just an old hag,” she says, approaching and holding out a hand. Cauthrien’s horse does not shy. “Your lord’s land?” she repeats, and tuts quietly under her breath. “The words come easily and yet not at all. Are you lost, little pup?”

“I know exactly where I am.” Cauthrien tugs back on the reins, but her horse refuses to move. Calenhad would have backed in an instant. Her jaw clenches. “Step away.”

The woman sets a hand on her horse’s muzzle, looking at it and not her. “Do you, now? And how far is freedom? How far is peace? If you do not know where those lie, you don’t know where you are at all.”

Cauthrien fights the urge to raise a hand. She is no imperious lady or chevalier, to strike an old woman aside from her horse. But she does not appreciate her words, too incisive, too painful, and she tries again to retreat.

Again, her horse does not obey.

But then in the distance the hounds sound; the party has changed directions and comes racing towards her. With a chuckle, the older woman finally backs away. “Think on it. And when freedom calls, know exactly where to fly, little dragon.”

And then she’s gone, a whisper on the snow-ladden wind.


	29. The Formari Herbalist [Leandra & Solivitus, G]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for MissL0nelyHearts on tumblr.

“I just don’t see why it has to take so long. I should have at least brought a fan,” Leandra muttered. Her hand simply didn’t help enough, not with how bright the sun was out in the middle of the habor and how much the Gallows seemed to radiate heat, the courtyard a veritable oven. At least when they had waited for Gamlen, all those years ago, it had been early spring. Now it was simply miserable.

“Would shade do?” came a voice from behind her, and she turned, passed the dropped portcullis to where her daughter was, over to the set of stalls just along the wall. She blinked. She had thought they were all Tranquil, but a man stood there, older, ginger hair thinning, and he beckoned. “Come, take a seat. Let me get you something to drink. You’re Bethany Hawke’s mother, aren’t you?”

“I- yes, I am.” She glanced around, but the few templars stationed nearby didn’t spare her a glance, and she had to conclude that this was… alright. She crossed the plaza stone to him, and he motioned to a chair he had set up just beside his table. “And you are…?”

“Solivitus,” he said, with a gentile incline of his head, “Formari and herbalist. Proprietor of  _Formari Herbalist_.”

“Not a very creative name.” She laughed and settled down, blissfully out of the sun. It was notably cooler, and she wondered how much of it was shade and how much of it was magic.

Solivitus smiled, gracious and rather gentlemanly, for all that he had likely been raised in the Gallows. “No,” he said, with another nod, “but the templars don’t allow us signs. I needed something that would be easily remembered.”

“Sol’s Wares wouldn’t work?”

“… It might. I’ll have to think on that.” He chuckled. “Would you like a drink?”

“Oh, not this early in the day.” And not with Bethany still to see. She certainly didn’t need to be lightheaded while seeing her only daughter - she might say something incredibly and undeniably  _rude_  about templars and their habits. And she couldn’t have that.

Solivitus laughed again, low and soft and rolling, and shook his head. “Not that sort of drink. Something refreshing? It’s an added talent, useful during the summer. Let me make you something. Who knows how long they’ll drag their feet for. They do have  _so_  much practice at it.”

Leandra glanced to the templars again, and Solivitus only shrugged. “It’s the paperwork,” he said. “They do love their paperwork, almost as much as they love those helms. Now, come. Mint, or something sweet?”

He had pulled out a metal cup, one rimmed in frost, from beneath his table, and he wiggled it at her, brow quirked.

“Mint, I think,” she said, and as he smiled and began to gather ingredients from the multitude of boxes he had, she added, “You know my daughter?”

“Of her, mostly. Your son comes by far more often than I get a chance to see her. Both very good kids- very bright.”

“Yes,” Leandra said, with a sigh, “they are. … Is she alright?”

“Mm.” There was the tink of a stir rod in the cup, and Leandra couldn’t help her slight smile as the scent of crushed mint wafted to her. “She understands life here,” Solivitus went on, adding a pinch of crystalized honey. “She’s very good at it, really. And much loved.”

“That’s good.” Leandra bowed her head in thanks as he offered over the drink. There was a hint of other herbs there, too, and she took a moment to place them before sipping. Calming herbs, and a bit of root to keep a complexion smooth. “Thank you,” she said, and took a sip.

Cold and refreshing, too. This Solivitus did know his trade.

“You’re very welcome,” he said, then glanced to their guard and the Tranquil that worked close by and shuffled closer. “I know that it’s hard to hear,” he said, and she stiffened, frowning and looking at her drink, “but- she is doing well here. I don’t know whether she’s doing better or worse than she did before, but she’s one of the ones who can thrive here. There aren’t many.

“If you could tell your son and his friends to stop pushing, she will be even safer.”

Leandra’s throat felt dry, and she took another sip, silent.

“I’m sorry,” he said, standing straighter. “That was rude of me.”

“It was,” she said, then sighed. “Do you care so much?”

“The apprentices love her,” he said, “and if I know a way to spare any of us- I try to help them follow it.”

“Is that how you ended up outside the gates?”

Solivitus laughed, but this time it was an uneven and rough thing. “I bring in gold. I hardly have to behave. But yes. Yes, I suppose it is.”

 _An apologist_ , Leandra thought, but didn’t say it, taking another drink. Instead, she simply looked to the gates, watching for any sign of her little girl. Her girl who shouldn’t have been there. Her girl who she had protected from this for nineteen years.

“I want her home,” Leandra said, quietly.

“… I know,” Solivitus murmured in turn. “But if she can’t come home, then she can build one here. Remember that. And help her do that. It doesn’t… work, always pining for something more.”

Slowly, Leandra lowered the cup to her lap. She knew exactly the words he spoke, and for a moment her thoughts went to Malcolm. She’d always wished they could have a grand house, wished they could return to Kirkwall. It had eaten at her, those first few years. She remembered that.

But Lothering was hardly the Gallows.

And yet…

“Leandra Amell?” came the templar’s call, and she started back to the moment. She rose from her seat, finishing off her drink and handing it back to Solivitus, who stood with outstretched hand.

“Hawke,” she corrected automatically. “Leandra Hawke, if you would.” The templar wore a mask, and she couldn’t see if he had a reaction, but she walked to him and passed him without waiting. “I’d like to see my daughter,” she said.

“Yes, of course,” the templar said, and he bowed.

It was something, at least. A little bit of deference to a bereft mother. Some people in the Gallows still remembered manners.

Maybe it  _could_  be a home, of sorts.


	30. Lead Me Home [Cauthrien/Teagan, g]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon requested: Cauth/Teagan, returning to the Bannorn for the first time since the war.

He leads her home in chains.

He tells himself that it’s not to her home, but he knows enough of her background. A farmer’s girl- though he thinks she’s from the northeast, not the southwest. They are opposites in that way.

They are opposites in a lot of ways.

She is in chains, defeated yet with a straight back. She has no purpose aside from being watched for the rest of her days, put to use when she can be and locked away when she cannot. He returns in victory, but his shoulders are bowed with the weight of it, purpose too readily coming.

Eamon remains in Denerim.

He will govern Redcliffe and Rainsfere both.

They make camp every night along the road. There are darkspawn that wander still, but not many, and his men are now skilled at dispatching them. He should be proud of them. He  _is_  proud of them. But he is tired. He looks out on the burned fields, the blighted ground, and he is  _tired_.

He’s sitting there, halfway between Denerim and home, when he hears the rattle of chain behind him. He doesn’t look away from the ashen legacy, the coming famine that might still destroy them. Behind him is the woman who ordered the torches lit, who ordered the troops to march. She is not the architect of their loss, but she is the instrument of it.

She doesn’t speak.

And eventually, her footsteps retreat, and he feels his shoulders sag further.

___

He remembers the Occupation. He was a boy then, and he grew up in the Free Marches, but he remembers enough. He remembers Eamon, and he remembers Rowan welcoming them home with open arms.

She remembers the Occupation, but she remembers it in revolutionist stories. She was born before the Orlesians left, and he has heard she is fluent in their language, but none of the memories are her own. She remembers instead what came after, the slow crawling back out of how the Orlesians destroyed everything. The poverty, the famine- she knows that.

And yet she burned the field.

He watches her across the fire as she stirs at her porridge with closely-bound hands, eyes down but back still as straight as she can manage. Is it pride? Or is it long training that even now she cannot shake?

Why is he looking?

Anora demanded that he hold Cauthrien’s leash, and so he does, but it brings him little joy. He had gone in to have her exiled, and instead she follows by his heels as a mabari pup. She is no pup. He would style her a wolf instead- but she is loyal, and she is docile until provoked, and she has been courteous and gracious and damnably infuriating-

“ _Say_  something,” he says at last.

She looks up.

“I am sorry,” she says.

He stares.

She meets it.

And then he flinches and she looks down, and she finishes her porridge without another word.

___

 _I am sorry_.

The words haunt him. They haunt him in her voice, and in his as well, because this wasn’t how the war was supposed to go. He had hoped there would be no war. When he had stood up to Loghain, he had  _prayed_  that it would diffuse the tensions, that everybody would step aside and  _know_ -

But they hadn’t.

The fields are burned.

The woman who burned them follows behind him now as they enter his home in Rainsfere.

What does he do with her? Does he unbind her, let her roam free? Will she guard herself? He thinks she might. He turns and watches her, and finds her watching him in turn.

She is proud, but not stupidly so. She knows herself- and does not hide. She has not protested one moment of the journey, and he feels his throat go dry.

“Unlock her,” he says, and while his voice sounds distant, the words sound right. “Unbind her.”

Cauthrien looks about to protest, but then she bows her head and holds her wrists before her. “Thank you, my lord,” she says.

He’s not sure what to do with the thrill that goes through him.

“Thank you,” she says again.

He swallows and turns from her, and cannot find a single word for either of them.


End file.
